No one has forgotten that. Marketing is not just about awareness, it is about selling tickets and building interest.

As for patience, I'm plenty patient. My life moves on just fine without MOS. But I think WB's marketing strategy has been laughably bad so far.

Two trailers, two posters, and two magazine spreads is laughably bad? I guess we should go the Marvel route and just blitzkerg everyone with interviews, trailers, extended trailers that pretty much spoil the goddamn movie.

Are we forgetting who's producing this thing? Do we not remember the marketing for Rises. For Inception?

Two trailers, two posters, and two magazine spreads is laughably bad? I guess we should go the Marvel route and just blitzkerg everyone with interviews, trailers, extended trailers that pretty much spoil the goddamn movie.

Are we forgetting who's producing this thing? Do we not remember the marketing for Rises. For Inception?

Everyone is guilty of the blitz. Lest we forget GreenLantern, and or the sheer amount of TV spots all these films have on average.

Inception brings up a great point. Word of mouth is a powerful force, and people who keep guessing humble figures for Box Office maybe should look over to inception. I don't even think that film opened big.
But it sure ended that way.

As I've described, its all about continual presence and buildup. Spoiling the film is not required. Having posters and banners in theatres, creating some action-heavy trailers and spots, and some more promo pics would go a long way. These things should be staggered out over a long period of time to keep people talking and to give MOS a constant media presence on websites and whatnot. Again, film excitement is not a last minute thing, it is all about buildup, and this is something studios have understood for a long time.

I'm sure WB will produce a last-minute blitz and folks like J. Howlett will be happy with that. Okay, great. But it won't have the same effect that a huge buildup has. It will have the effect of "initial interest." Last minute saturation doesn't equate with long-term investment.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Arrow_22

Look for reports of mysterious heroism in the next 6 years. Then check back on this thread

How about just a few teaser tv spots early on peppered through out March just teasing at the kind of violence and action and adventure this movie will have? Not a lot, just a few...

One could also do a kick ass Dark Knight style Viral campaign along the lines of who are these aliens? Where are they coming from, with slow reveals of Faora, Zod, weapons, Landscape of Krypton, stuff like that really sells well

Unless the rumour about hypnosis is true, it is Not possible for you to be interested in a type of film you normally don't watch.

Does marketing trick you into assuming that a film may be more interesting to you than it actually is? ALL THE TIME.

Can marketing grab your attention with lots of promoting? YES.

But ask yourselves this - can the marketing work if you have NO interest whatsoever in the type of film being promoted? If you hate musicals, would marketing a film like Les Miserables work on you? Unless they avoided any mention of Singing, but when you found out, game over.

At the end of the day, marketing is used to promote a product for those who ARE interested. If you have no interest, will it ever work?

Everyone is guilty of the blitz. Lest we forget GreenLantern, and or the sheer amount of TV spots all these films have on average.

Inception brings up a great point. Word of mouth is a powerful force, and people who keep guessing humble figures for Box Office maybe should look over to inception. I don't even think that film opened big.
But it sure ended that way.

Inception opened with 62 million. That was great for that film. Nobody knew anything about that film and how it'll open. Pacific Rim will probably open to something very similar plus the 3D bum.

- IMAX preview with the Hobbit - might not have been possible to do with the opening but why not a preview like they did for Batman Begins, it could have been around 4 or 5 minutes long. Maybe it could have even been done as a making of type thing with interviews interspersed with footage. Alternatively it would be good to do this with Iron Man 3 or Star Trek Into Darkness or maybe even a similar thing with the finale of Arrow as Batman Begins did with Smallville.

- TV Spot with the Superbowl - they missed a trick with this one.

- a panel at Wondercon with the reveal of the new character posters

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Just had a thought on the mask too there were some spoilers that said it looks similar to the masks worn by the Engineers in Prometheus and I can definitely see the resemblance.

I've got to run guys. This post, which I made on the last page, sums up my thoughts. Again, I'm not advocating spoiling the movie, I'm advocating an increased marketing presence. There's a huge difference between the two and your paradigm is overly simplisitic if you think there is no middle ground between radio silence and heavy spoilers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThePhantasm

There are benefits to long-term momentum-building marketing. Warner Bros. pioneered such marketing in 1989 with the first Batman film. The result was "batmania," a pre-film hype frenzy that translated into a) the film being a huge box office success and b) some $750 million dollars worth of merchandise being sold prior to the film's release. As such, the marketing payed off in spades. It was costly, but the benefits were well worth the cost.

Other studios began employing the long-term marketing strategy after that. With the release of Batman and Robin, however, WB ran their once-popular franchise into the ground. They didn't risk a large scale marketing campaign for Batman Begins, and while Begins was a success in theatres, it was not as huge as it could have been. With The Dark Knight, however, WB presented a huge 1989-reminiscent marketing campaign that put TDK in the news continually and made the sequel as smash hit. After the tremendous success of TDK all WB had to do to market TDKR was use a relatively tame marketing campaign.

The problem with MOS is that they are employing that TDKR style marketing campaign (actually even less than that, as cragdbfan noted), hoping that Nolan's name will draw in audiences, rather than employing the more successful campaigns that they are better known for. The risk, however, is that MOS may only have a mediocre presence in theatres if things don't pick up. There is also the further potential loss to merchandising sales that would otherwise be higher with a batmania-esque hype.

Yes, there are costs and risks to all marketing strategies. Here, I'm critiquing WB's current strategy as following a faulty paradigm (the TDKR paradigm) when they should be putting more effort into things. It doesn't have to be the level of Batman '89 and TDK, but it should be more intensive than it is right now.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Arrow_22

Look for reports of mysterious heroism in the next 6 years. Then check back on this thread

As I've described, its all about continual presence and buildup. Spoiling the film is not required. Having posters and banners in theatres, creating some action-heavy trailers and spots, and some more promo pics would go a long way. These things should be staggered out over a long period of time to keep people talking and to give MOS a constant media presence on websites and whatnot. Again, film excitement is not a last minute thing, it is all about buildup, and this is something studios have understood for a long time.

I'm sure WB will produce a last-minute blitz and folks like J. Howlett will be happy with that. Okay, great. But it won't have the same effect that a huge buildup has. It will have the effect of "initial interest." Last minute saturation doesn't equate with long-term investment.

What you described is the problem with the industry right now. You use to get away with a poster or two and two trailers. Now, because of the nature of our society, you guys are asking for a constant stream of news and hype for a film. Do you know how much that adds to a film's bottom line and why a lot of these films don't make money theatrically then don't get sequels?

WB has spent 225 million on production costs for this film. Does it really need another 150 million in marketing as well?

WB would like to make some actual money off of the theatrical release, instead of waiting for home video, merchandising, TV rights, etc., etc.

Keeping the marketing costs down while also being effective is the best route for them. They can't do Green Lantern again. Not with Superman.

They have to walk a fine line. That's one of the reasons why those two trailers so far we edited and scored to MAXIMUM effect....so they won't have to go all out on the marketing for this film.

- IMAX preview with the Hobbit - might not have been possible to do with the opening but why not a preview like they did for Batman Begins, it could have been around 4 or 5 minutes long. Maybe it could have even been done as a making of type thing with interviews interspersed with footage. Alternatively it would be good to do this with Iron Man 3 or Star Trek Into Darkness or maybe even a similar thing with the finale of Arrow as Batman Begins did with Smallville.

- TV Spot with the Superbowl - they missed a trick with this one.

- a panel at Wondercon with the reveal of the new character posters

Wondercon isn't for the general audience. It's for people who are already going to go see the film anyway. Get away from that. That's another problem with the industry as well. They cater to goddamn much to a contingency that's pretty much sold on the film from minute one. That's wasted money.

I'm not too concerned with the lack of new promotions. What we've seen so far has been great. WB can ride the current anticipation/buzz for awhile, sprinkle in another trailer and perhaps a few bits of viral marketing, then unleash the main blitz a couple weeks before the movie comes out.

__________________Supermanwith Batman - Whatever It Is... - Countdown until midnight release on March 25, 2016 - updated!
A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coataround a young boy's shoulders to let him know the world hadn't ended.

I at least expected a proper official photo/poster of Zod by now. I think it's really silly to have had so many toys released and not one actual look at how those costumes transfer on screen other than half arsed head shots that show barely anything

I mean how many pics of Bane had Batman fans had by this stage last year?

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I think back to my father. As a farmer, he had a natural understanding for the Earth. I remember him telling me this world is capable of providing for all its creatures. Even now, with so many more people, there exists enough food for everyone.

"The problem," Pa used to say, "is people. As far back as we go, we've always had problems with sharing. Seems everyone's too busy holding on to what they've got to care how their neighbors are doing."

I at least expected a proper official photo/poster of Zod by now. I think it's really silly to have had so many toys released and not one actual look at how those costumes transfer on screen other than half arsed head shots that show barely anything

I mean how many pics of Bane had Batman fans had by this stage last year?

About the same. Rises marketing wasn't as big as people are remembering.

Wondercon isn't for the general audience. It's for people who are already going to go see the film anyway. Get away from that. That's another problem with the industry as well. They cater to goddamn much to a contingency that's pretty much sold on the film from minute one. That's wasted money.

But it still would have been a good place to reveal the character posters or a reveal of Zod

Lets be honest here, people. There is another reason for this whole debacle about WBs 'poor' marketing.

The film finished production in early 2012, and all we've seen since the has been a teaser, a full trailer, and a poor cam of a Comic Con trailer (made up of mostly the full trailer). 2 posters, one a scene from the film we have already seen.

In the meantime, other films out at a similar time have had multiple posters and trailers, and we've seen SO much. There are SO many money shots from IM3 and STID ruined from their first trailers, and each trailer since wants to spoil more and more.

But stop and think about that. In nearly 2 years since production began, we have only seen approx 3-4 minutes of footage, and almost NONE of the money shots.

Does nobody else think that's amazing?

Almost.... Nolanesque?

I've got to bring this up though. A Superbowl spot? Maybe, but why bother when almost all the other trailers were for films BEFORE yours is released? Better to let them fight each other...

That kind of makes sense Starman. On the plus side, it is nice to feel like they have had plenty of time to tweak the movie and improve it. "Superman Returns" had a lot of fans feeling like the process was a bit rushed. With "Man of Steel" it feels like there has been enough time to make it the best it can be.

Superman Returns development was basically a plane ride to develop a story. Shooting in like March 2005 and the film released in June 2006. With it being the first film to bring Superman back, that seemed a bit narrow in time if you think about it. I believe Man of Steel began development in 2008 and started shooting in like August 2011. Releasing in 2013. Time should improve the final product imo.